Georgia and South Ossetia at war

[chena]

Russia aims to retain grip on Georgian port city

By BELA SZANDELSZKY, Associated Press Writer

Thousands of Georgians demanded that Russian troops leave the outskirts of this strategic Black Sea port on Saturday and took to the streets in protest, while a top Russian general said his country's forces would keep patrolling the area.
The comments by deputy head of the general staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, reported by Russian news agencies, showed that despite protests from the United States, France and Britain, Russia was confident enough to occupy whatever part of Georgia it deemed necessary.
"Russian military: You are not a liberating military, you are an occupying force!" one man shouted at the Poti protest. Banners read "Say No to War" and "Russia go home."
On Friday, Russia said it had pulled back forces from Georgia in accordance with a EU-brokered cease-fire agreement.
"There are very specific requirements for Russian withdrawal. Putting up permanent facilities and checkpoints are inconsistent with the agreement. We are in contact with the various parties to obtain clarification," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said he had pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a phone conversation Saturday to quickly remove Russian troops from an axis between the Georgian towns of Poti and Senaki.
Russia's pullback on Friday came two weeks to the day after thousands of Russian soldiers roared into the former Soviet republic following an assault by Georgian forces on the separatist region of South Ossetia. The fighting left hundreds dead and nearly 160,000 people homeless.
It also has deeply strained relations between Moscow and the West. Russia has frozen its military cooperation with NATO, Moscow's Cold War foe, underscoring a growing division in Europe.
On Saturday, residents of the strategic central city of Gori began returning. Chaotic crowds of people and cars were jammed outside the city as Georgian police tried to control the mass return by setting up makeshift checkpoints.
Those who were let through came back to find a city battered by bombs, suffering from food shortages and gripped by anguish.
Surman Kekashvili, 37, stayed in Gori, taking shelter in a basement after his apartment was destroyed by a Russian bomb. Several days ago, he tried to bury three relatives killed by the bomb, placing what body parts he could find in a shallow grave covered by a burnt log, a rock and a piece of scrap metal.
"I took only a foot and some of a torso. I could not get the other bodies out," he said.
His next-door neighbor, Frosia Dzadiashvili, found most of her apartment destroyed, leaving only a room the size of a broom closet to stay in.
"I have nothing. My neighbors feed me if they have food to share," the 70-year-old woman said.
The Russian tanks and troops are now gone from Gori but other Russian troops are just up the road at a new Russian checkpoint. On Saturday afternoon, several thousand protesters waving Georgian flags approached the Russian position on the outskirts of Gori. Some soldiers came out of their trenches, but there was no clash.
Russian troops also held positions in trenches they had dug near a bridge that provides the only access to Poti. Tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked nearby. Russian troops hoisted both Russian flags and the flag of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS, the union of former Soviet republics that Georgia recently announced it had left.
Emotions ran high as protesters approached a Russian position, but direct confrontation was avoided.
"They have the CIS flag, and that flag is not our Georgian flag," said protester Sulkhan Tolordava. "Georgia is not a member of this organization, so the troops must leave very quickly."
Russia interprets the cease-fire accord as allowing it to keep a substantial military presence in Georgia because of earlier peacekeeping agreements that ended fighting in the separatist areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990s.
But even though Poti is completely outside the buffer zone for Abkhazia, Nogovitsyn said Russian troops are not leaving and will patrol the city.
"Poti is not in the security zone, but that doesn't mean that we will sit behind the fence and watch as they drive around in Hummers," Nogovitsyn said, making an acid reference to four U.S. Humvees the Russians seized in Poti this week. The vehicles were used in previous joint U.S.-Georgian military exercises.
Russian forces also set up a checkpoint near Senaki, the home of a major military base in western Georgia that Georgian troops retook on Saturday. AP video footage of the base Saturday showed it had been heavily looted.
And in South Ossetia, Russian troops erected 18 peacekeeping posts in the "security zone" and planned to build another 18 peacekeeping posts around Abkhazia. A total of 2,600 heavily armed troops the Russians call peacekeepers will be deployed in those regions.
Russia, Georgia and the West are certain to continue the diplomatic struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The Russian parliament was expected to discuss recognizing the independence of the separatist regions Monday.
In some devastated Georgian towns, the only visitors Saturday were looters, arriving in trucks and cars to take whatever they could find.
In the village of Kekhvi, the ethnic Georgian homes had been burned. An AP reporter saw Ossetian men hauling away cutlery, electronics, blankets, foodstuffs and even Orthodox icons in a looting campaign driven by opportunism and revenge. Some looters even came to pluck ripe peaches off the trees.
"This is not looting, this is trophies," said Garik Meriyev, 32, a stubbled South Ossetian dressed in green camouflage pants, a black baseball cap and dusty jackboots.
He and four other men loaded their yellow Russian-made minibus Saturday with metal pipes, timber and bricks from a burned down house.
"All of this will be destroyed anyway," he said. "But now these things will serve me."

[Dea]

Don't forget that so called South Ossetia is a Georgian region Samachablo. Russians even renamed it. Typical Russan illiterate agony!

[Dea]

Occupation of an independent country is not bad???? Thank you for writing this. No one else could explain Russian thinking style than you did. Its good that you acknowledge that mass murders are bad. At least there's one bad thing that is bad also in Russian understanding. Also add that bombing civil houses, murdering journalists, raping, cutting alive people in parts is bad. Expand your list, please. And maybe some time Russians will get rid of terrorist thinkin style.

[chena]

August 23, 2008 Saturday 8:15 PM GMT


Vaclav Havel denounces Putin's 'sophisticated regime'


Former Czech president Vaclav Havel denounced Saturday Russia's expansive policy under what he called Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's "sophisticated regime."


"The invasion and occupation of Georgia clearly shows the nature of the current Putin regime, a lot more sophisticated than the communism of (former Soviet president Leonid) Brezhnev," Havel, who was also the last president of former Czechoslovakia, said during a debate at a rock festival in northeast city of Trutnov.


The architect of the "Velvet Revolution" in 1989 that led to the downfall of Prague's communist government, Havel also compared the current Georgian-Russian conflict with the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, accusing Moscow of having "imperial ambitions."


"Russia does not really know where it begins and where it ends. It is the biggest country in the world and yet it gives the impression that it is too small and that it is constantly threatened by all its small neighbours," he said.


He spoke as Russian troops continued manning positions deep inside Georgia, keeping a grip on a strategic port, while Europe pressed Moscow to pull back further and allow international observers in the volatile region.


"We must not talk to Russia like we would a leper (leprosy sufferer)... in a slightly special manner, gentle and careful," he said to loud applause from the hundreds of young festival-goers.


Organisers of the open-air music festival invited 108 groups and soloists to perform this weekend to mark the 108 Czechs and Slovaks who were killed by Warsaw Pact soldiers between August and December 1968.


A series of commemorations were held this week to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of the Prague Spring, in which Czechoslovakia's Prime Minister Alexander Dubcek tried to usher in liberal reforms, but was crushed by Soviet tanks and its Warsaw Pact allies.

[independent]

Occupation of an independent country is not bad???? Thank you for writing this. No one else could explain Russian thinking style than you did. Its good that you acknowledge that mass murders are bad. At least there's one bad thing that is bad also in Russian understanding. Also add that bombing civil houses, murdering journalists, raping, cutting alive people in parts is bad. Expand your list, please. And maybe some time Russians will get rid of terrorist thinkin style.

It is not that bad - We (EU) have accepted (and co-operated) that to be done for many times - mostly
to avoid mass-murders, ethnic cleanings, dictators etc.etc. So for us violation of territory-rights of
independent country is not main issue. To avoid violence and violation of Human Rights are.
And You believe we change our way of thinking because of Saakashvili telling his tiny lies ?
Keep on dreaming....

[Dea]

Occupation of an independent country is not bad???? Thank you for writing this. No one else could explain Russian thinking style than you did. Its good that you acknowledge that mass murders are bad. At least there's one bad thing that is bad also in Russian understanding. Also add that bombing civil houses, murdering journalists, raping, cutting alive people in parts is bad. Expand your list, please. And maybe some time Russians will get rid of terrorist thinkin style.

It is not that bad - We (EU) have accepted (and co-operated) that to be done for many times - mostly
to avoid mass-murders, ethnic cleanings, dictators etc.etc. So for us violation of territory-rights of
independent country is not main issue. To avoid violence and violation of Human Rights are.
And You believe we change our way of thinking because of Saakashvili telling his tiny lies ?
Keep on dreaming....

Thank you, we will. And we'll keep on Developing, as a civilized nation unlike those who think that murders and terrorism can be justified.

P.S Can you still say We-EU????

[independent]

Thank you, we will. And we'll keep on Developing, as a civilized nation unlike those who think that murders and terrorism can be justified.

P.S Can you still say We-EU????

You can't understand it because You assume that US (Bush) way is the same as EU way.
It is not - when it comes to issues like this it is not even close. I hope EU and US will
in future again share the same values and visions - but right now there are a lot in
US politic that we can't accept. Your country is part of that dispute

[Simon A]

Saakashvili is the criminal and the terrorist. His soldiers have killed 2000 peace citizens. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.osradio.info/">http://www.osradio.info/</a><!-- m --> and <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://osinform.ru/index.php?action_skin_change=yes&skin_name=full_en">http://osinform.ru/index.php?action_ski ... me=full_en</a><!-- m -->
The crimes of georgian's army in S. Ossetia <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1WNJOfnHY">http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1WNJOfnHY</a><!-- m -->

Russia has recognized independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia!

[Frederic]

Russia has recognized independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia!

[/quote]
And this decision will be supported by Venezuela, Cuba and Syria. :haha :haha :haha It indicates once again that Russia was really unbiased peacekeeper in Georgia.

[Simon A]

Venezuela, Cuba and Syria and then and other countries. The recognition the USA or Europe has no any value.

Saakashvili is the criminal and the terrorist. His soldiers have killed 2000 peace citizens. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.osradio.info/">http://www.osradio.info/</a><!-- m --> and <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://osinform.ru/index.php?action_ski">http://osinform.ru/index.php?action_ski</a><!-- m --> ... me=full_en
The crimes of georgian's army in S. Ossetia <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1WNJOfnHY">http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1WNJOfnHY</a><!-- m -->

[Frederic]

Venezuela, Cuba and Syria and then and other countries. The recognition the USA or Europe has no any value.

Saakashvili is the criminal and the terrorist. His soldiers have killed 2000 peace citizens. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.osradio.info/">http://www.osradio.info/</a><!-- m --> and <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://osinform.ru/index.php?action_ski">http://osinform.ru/index.php?action_ski</a><!-- m --> ... me=full_en
The crimes of georgian's army in S. Ossetia <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1WNJOfnHY">http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=OE1WNJOfnHY</a><!-- m -->

I guess that ossradio is the most reliable source of information in the world.
Anyway I fail to undersyand how could russian officials pre-declare the number of civilian casualties from the very beginning of the conflict, claiming 2000 death toll. A couple of days ago they confirmed 133, but the other day decided to adhere to initially declared number and declared 2000 again. At the same time HRW confirms 44. It very immoral to get into the death toll race.

[IamGEORGIA]

Today russian federation started process of recognization of independence of Georgian teritories..very fuuny.. :haha

But of course whole civilised world would not recognize independenc of separatist enclaves of georgian regions...
It means that the problems because of we were not given MAP, (teritorial conflicts) are not resolved by russians themselves..It means there will be no barier for joining nato..after joining how is it possible that on the teritory of NATO member there will be russian troops..It is not very possible..so they will be replaced by nternational [peacekeepres and then bye bye rusiand occupand peacekeepers.. :haha


(by the way, Bagapsh was my neighbour in Tbilisi, he was living in the house front of me..he has georgian wife..but becasue of big money, now he is where he is..)

[independent]

It means there will be no barier for joining nato..after joining how is it possible that on the teritory of NATO member there will be russian troops..It is not very possible..so they will be replaced by nternational [peacekeepres and then bye bye rusiand occupand peacekeepers.. :haha

You are so optimistic :-P

The only barrier for Georgia to joining NATO still remains - NATO is not accepting Your country as a
member. And it is so easy to find out why. Merkel told You can join if You will - but she did it because
now You don't fulfill the military requirements for years.

What is really happening:

Bye, bye - S-Ossetia, Ahkbaasia, EU- and NATO - membership. Saakashvili should be very proud of
himself

[Simon A]

Yes, South Ossetia and Abkhazia is a problem which Russia should solve. The USA pursue the interests in Georgia and they will not interfere with the conflict. Russia did not prevent them, while fool Saakashvili did not begin to shoot across Tskhinvali. Therefore all problem in Саакашвили.

[IamGEORGIA]

It means there will be no barier for joining nato..after joining how is it possible that on the teritory of NATO member there will be russian troops..It is not very possible..so they will be replaced by nternational [peacekeepres and then bye bye rusiand occupand peacekeepers.. :haha

You are so optimistic :-P

The only barrier for Georgia to joining NATO still remains - NATO is not accepting Your country as a
member. And it is so easy to find out why. Merkel told You can join if You will - but she did it because
now You don't fulfill the military requirements for years.

What is really happening:

Bye, bye - S-Ossetia, Ahkbaasia, EU- and NATO - membership. Saakashvili should be very proud of
himself

Are you living on mars?
MIiltary requirements, what do you mean? :haha

Bye bye russains forever..
S ossetia (Samachablo) and Abkhazia was, is, and will be georgian teritory no matter what russian clowns are saying and recognizing...

[independent]

Are you living on mars?
MIiltary requirements, what do you mean? :haha

Now I can see the reason for Your optimistic view....
Answer: Learn a little about becoming a NATO member.

S ossetia (Samachablo) and Abkhazia was, is, and will be georgian teritory no matter what russian clowns are saying and recognizing...

Really ?
And when Russia recognize their independency what are You going to do against it ?
Begin a war with them ?
Begin a war with Russia ?

[Frederic]

Answer: Learn a little about becoming a NATO member

.
We will, thanks for recomendation. The fact is that now Georgia is more close to NATO, and not more far away from it`s territorial integrity, then Georgia used to be during the years.

Really ?
And when Russia confirm their independency what are You going to do against that ?
Begin a war with them ?
Begin a war with Russia ?

[/quote]
So recognizing of these seseccionist anlcaves by russia does not mean anything in the current international situation. Little Kremlin pupets (Kokoity and Bagapsh) will play independance for a while. Maybe they will open diplomatic missions in Moscow, Caracas and Havana. :haha :haha :haha
I hope Medvedev will endorse the decision of Duma, it will be the best present for Georgia. This will put an end to the myths about Russia's role as a mediator in the conflict resolution which is merely ridiculous. Internationalization of the process is the only solution, that can be achieved more easily, if russians continue to take such silly steps.

[independent]

I hope Medvedev will endorse the decision of Duma, it will be the best present for Georgia. This will put an end to the myths about Russia's role as a mediator in the conflict resolution which is merely ridiculous. Internationalization of the process is the only solution, that can be achieved more easily, if russians continue to take such silly steps.

You don't get the point:
If those regions are recognized by Russia - You don't have any influence there anymore. You can't
send Your army there or operate there some other way. So You have lost the game - so simple.
And even You now think that western countries do not recognize those new countries - many of
them will after a short delay. It was well known "frozen conflict area" and now when it becomes hot
You can't deny it anymore.

[Benn]

it's a good thing the conflict now is being in the world's attention. Frozen conflicts don't bring to good, since the ice, earlier or later, melts.

[Frederic]

I hope Medvedev will endorse the decision of Duma, it will be the best present for Georgia. This will put an end to the myths about Russia's role as a mediator in the conflict resolution which is merely ridiculous. Internationalization of the process is the only solution, that can be achieved more easily, if russians continue to take such silly steps.

You don't get the point:
If those regions are recognized by Russia - You don't have any influence there anymore. You can't
send Your army there or operate there some other way. So You have lost the game - so simple.
And even You know think that western countries do not recognize those new countries - many of
them will after a short delay. It was well known "frozen conflict area" and now when it becomes hot
You can't deny it anymore.

Dear independent,
It is you who are loosing the point. Georgia is not going to send its army anywhere, and it didn`t send it unless attacked by Russia. Anyway, about what influence are you talking about? It was only russia who had influence during the years there, creating lawless zones in Caucasus. So frozen neglected conflict is not better for territorial integrity of Georgia, then conflict, where everybody knows who is really engaged. The fact is that the myth about georgian-ossetian and georgian-abkhaz conflict has been destroyed. These conflicts actually never existed, the conflicts were provoked by russia to hinder georgia`s development. I doubt that any of the European countries will ever recognize these seccesionist enclaves, don`t count on it. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria, that`s all.

[independent]

Dear independent,
It is you who are loosing the point. Georgia is not going to send its army anywhere, and it didn`t send it unless attacked by Russia. Anyway, about what influence are you talking about? It was only russia who had influence during the years there, creating lawless zones in Caucasus. So frozen neglected conflict is not better for territorial integrity of Georgia, then conflict, where everybody knows who is really engaged. The fact is that the myth about georgian-ossetian and georgian-abkhaz conflict has been destroyed. These conflicts actually never existed, the conflicts were provoked by russia to hinder georgia`s development. I doubt that any of the European countries will ever recognize these seccesionist enclaves, don`t count on it. Cuba, Venezuela and Syria, that`s all.

It seems it is really hopeless task to explain something to You - so let's wait and see what happens ;-)

[Benn]

Frederic, you forgot to mention Belarus!

[SiD]

Georgians are REALY funny. Independent already explained to you. If Russia recognize this two states as independent and Georgian and Europe do not than Georgia will remain country with unresolved territoryal problems. AND CAN NOT JOIN NATO BECOUSE OF THIS. Well of course there is way to join NATO, to accept thier independance and join NATO with what is remained. Cool game isnt it? . So as long as they remain unrecognized by WEST and Georgia, Georgia is OUT of NATO. Great excuse to promise you ewerything and give nothing.

[Benn]

If NATO is so worthy for the Georgian government, why wouldn't they recognize South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence? I am confident Saakashvili understands very well he can't change the separatists' opinion in this sense.

[SiD]

If NATO is so worthy for the Georgian government, why wouldn't they recognize South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence? I am confident Saakashvili understands very well he can't change the separatists' opinion in this sense.

First of all Saakashvili promised to return these regions. Now he would just let em go?
Other thing is what is georgian people wants. Should he ignore his own people?